Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
CLAYTON
If Clayton hadn’t been certain that Mal was completely insane after that ridiculous phone conversation earlier, he’d just had it confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt.
No one ate Grampy’s cooking.
Not his daughter Eira, not the kids, definitely not Clayton, and not even the man himself. Grampy might have the passion of a chef, but he had the innate skills of a master poison maker.
A person only made the mistake of eating Grampy’s cooking once, and if they were lucky, they lived not to make it again.
The stinging pain of the burns covering half of Clayton’s body was overshadowed by the shock and incredulity of seeing Mal practically skipping with excitement at the prospect of eating more of Grampy’s nightmarish cooking.
Clayton and Eira exchanged twin flummoxed expressions, and Merry broke in on their daze by asking, ”Is Mal going to die?” Her eyes were shiny with unshed tears, like she fully believed it was curtains for Mal and only needed a trusted grown-up to confirm it for her.
Tommy punched his sister in the arm. “Mal’s a superhero. You can’t kill a superhero, stupid.”
Ugh. Not this again. Both kids had decided that Mal was the greatest thing ever and believed that he’d been the reason they’d all survived that day in the sewer, when anyone with a lick of sense would know that was absolute and complete horse shit.
Clayton had been with Merry and Tommy far longer than Mal had during that adventure.
The kids had only seen Mal for a handful of minutes before he buggered off to be a mysterious loner.
Not to mention that Mal had spent half the fight having a sweet little beauty nap while Clayton had done all the real work.
But it wasn’t Clayton they’d made an action figure of. It was an ugly little thing, and Clayton hated it.
And he had no idea why they didn’t make one for him, too.
It could have something to do with how Clayton was the one who made them wash their faces and hands before eating, or how he’d told them they couldn’t have dessert until they sneaked enough of Grampy’s food off their plates to make the old man happy.
Or maybe it was because Clayton wasn’t an underground folk hero vigilante who had multiple songs written about him and his stupid, ugly face.
It could have been any of those things, really. Only the gods would know.
Maybe the people should also write a song about how Mal liked to call people while they were in the tub, ask if they were naked, tell them they were in danger, and then insist they call their boss using magic that collided so badly with Mal’s that it ended up blowing Clayton clean out of his boat, giving it yet another hole it didn’t need.
Even with spell patches, Clayton was going to be tender for days. He’d been unable to bear wearing anything other than his robe against his skin since the explosion. Even his abundant supply of spell patches had taken a hit due to last night's incident.
“I still think we should check and make sure Mal is okay,” Merry insisted. “If Grampy kills a superhero, he might go to jail.”
Clayton snorted. “Grampy isn’t going to jail.”
He was fairly certain that if Grampy killed Mal, the Guard would give the old man a medal.
He didn’t know what Mal was, but he doubted the man was a member of the Beloved.
And while it wasn’t against the law to be Benighted, the Guard didn’t generally like it when one of them was powerful and did whatever the fuck they wanted.
Their society was pretty fucked up if one looked at it too closely. Anyone who passed as a norm was free to roam around the Real as they pleased. As long as they didn’t touch the Guard’s bottom line, the Guard didn’t get involved with their activities unless asked.
The Guard wasn’t like the norm version of the law, but they were as close as the Other had to it.
The Guard’s main purpose was to maintain the balance of the Real and the Dreamscape.
Both relied on one another to survive, but if the veil between the two became too thin or was breached, everything would go straight to shit.
In theory, anyway. As far as Clayton knew, it never had.
So the Guard didn’t care about the little things their citizens got up to. Some guardians did, *coughcoughFirecough*, but they were a small minority.
This left the Benighted—members of the Other who couldn’t blend in well enough to avoid being noticed by norms—to be snubbed and brushed under the rug of society.
What could they do? If they fought back too hard, they could be exposed to the norms, and then the Guard would get involved.
And if they didn’t have the money and connections most of the Beloved had, then they got the business end of Guard justice.
Certain assholes from the Beloved had been known to purposely frame Benighted for fun, so the Benighted went underground and stayed as far from the Beloved as they could get, and none of them crossed the Guard.
Except for Mal.
So, no, Mal wasn’t breaking Guard law by helping the Benighted with their problems, but from what Clayton had managed to gather from his discreet inquiries, he’d pissed off many of the Beloved who had members of the Guard in their pocket.
It was only a matter of time before Mal popped onto the Guard’s radar.
Clayton conveniently ignored that he was a member of the Guard and that if he put forth a significant bit of effort, he had a tiny chance of becoming a guardian himself.
He wasn’t sure what team he’d be a part of.
Team Trash Fire, maybe. He and his team could be hero support for Fire by causing massive distractions when they needed one.
Clayton’s personal issues aside, he wasn’t bringing Mal to the Guard’s attention because everyone knew that snitches got stitches.
And maybe it wasn’t the worst thing ever that the Benighted had a champion to help them when something went pear-shaped, and they couldn’t handle it.
So why was Mal here?
Clayton stormed into the kitchen, brushing off Eira’s irritated demand that he “stop being a dumbass and sit the fuck down.”
He took in the towering monster standing in his kitchen, holding a slice of Grampy’s beetle pie in one hand and a bowl of something terrifyingly green in the other.
Apparently, Grampy had been busy today.
Clayton slapped the pie out of Mal’s hand and snapped, “Why did you come here? Did you think I couldn’t handle taking care of two children? It’s not like I don’t have help.”
Not only did Clayton have Grampy and Eira, but he also had Samantha and her companion, plus the chapter house brownie who kept sneaking nutritious meals into his bag every day before he went home.
Not to mention the rest of the members of the chapter house.
Every chance they got, someone was coming over to triple-check wards or give away unnecessary toys.
Clayton was doing just fine.
Mal stared at the pie on the floor with a look akin to shocked betrayal and a touch of mourning. “My pie…”
“Don’t worry, my boy, here’s another slice,” Grampy said, putting a small plate in Mal’s hand with a massive slice of pie on it.
It had little beetle legs sticking out of it, and Clayton could swear at least one of them was still kicking.
“Mfanks,” Mal said as he stuffed half of it into his mouth.
Clayton thought he saw a flash of light flicker in Mal’s eyes as he swallowed. He wasn’t curious about what Mal was. He wasn’t. Mal could be a seven-foot-tall shapeshifting rooster for all Clayton cared.
As long as Mal wasn’t a nightmare or a demon, whatever species he was was his own business.
Clayton didn’t need to worry about those last two. He would have noticed if Mal were one of those. Everyone in the Guard had been trained to be able to identify nightmares and demons. They were the worst of the worst and had to be killed on the spot for the sake of the Real and the ‘Scape.
When too much of one side interacted with the other, it caused the veil to go wonky and unstable. Dreamwalkers were the sole exception. Nightmares were spawned in the ‘Scape, and it was up to dreamwalkers to keep them there.
Vis—the patron deity of the Guard—had created their race specifically to maintain the balance, so dreamwalkers could go back and forth between the Real and the ‘Scape as often as they bloody well pleased.
“Well?” Clayton demanded, raising a hand threateningly to show that he had no qualms about killing another innocent slice of pie to get results. “Why did you come here?”
Mal cradled his pie and his soup protectively. “I’m not going to talk to you if you keep hurting my food.” Then Mal cocked his head to the side as if something occurred to him. “Unless you want to take its place.”
“You wish,” Clayton snorted. If a tiny jolt of electricity went through him, it was no one's business but Clayton’s. “I’ll leave your horrifying food alone as long as you talk. Start with why you called me, and why you’re here.”
Mal scowled. “I already told you why I called you, you little chaos magnet. I don’t know anyone in Boston but you, and I can’t think of anyone else on the planet who could divert an airplane on its way to China.
I’m tired, hungry, irritated, hungry, and—why are you only wearing a tiny robe?
Most people wear clothes in public. Do you think you’re special or something? There are perverts all over the place.”
Clayton made a show of glancing around the tiny galley kitchen in his home and allowed his eyes to land on Grampy, a wizened kirian whose hunched, tiny form was about as threatening as a piece of toast. Grampy gave him a kindly smile and held out a slice of pie for Clayton.
“Thank you, Grampy, but I’m still too dizzy from the spell patches to eat. And, Mal, I’ll wear whatever the bloody, buggering hell I want in my own home, you absolute doorknob.” Clayton was planning on working himself up to a glorious rage, but was cut short when a large hand took him by the wrist.